The Inside Line on the Hottest Holiday Toys

Good luck finding this season's hottest toys.

Not only is this the shortest holiday shopping season in six years, with just 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the dockworker strike in early fall has ensured that toys made in Asia will be harder to find than usual. And with retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch(ANF Quote) concerned that consumers will spend less, inventory levels are being tightly controlled to prevent the wave of discounting that happened after last Christmas.

Consider what happened at the launch of the Silly Sounds Teletubbies dolls in the flagship Times Square Toys R Us. Even though the toy wasn't even advertised on TV, demand was so great that Toys R Us(TOY Quote) couldn't keep them on the shelves. Parents and children mobbed the store display for weeks, eagerly grabbing the first Teletubbies toy released stateside in more than a year. ...